Sandstorm/Part 1 plot
Part 1 of Sandstorm Chapter 1 Fire and Rain November 14 01:33 AM :British Museum :London, England It is a stormy night at the British Museum. Harry Masterson works as a security guard in the British Museum. He makes his rounds. As he patrols the night shift, Masterson is shocked at the sight of a glow. As he confronts it, the glow reveals to be, what seems to be, a lightning ball. The lightning ball explodes, killing Harry Masterson. 01:53 AM Safia Al-Mazz wakes up to the sound of emergency serves. Realizing they head over to the British Library, she reels from shock. Picking up a call, she recieves knowledge from a person called tCaptain Hogan telling her the museum curator requests to converse with her regarding the issue. 02:13 AM Fort Meade, Maryland National Security Agency director Thomas Hardey is at home deep in his effort to solve the Sunday New York Times cross puzzle. His phone rings. Realize its his fifth line blinking, he remembers that only few people have access to that line: the president, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the second-in-command at the National Security Agency. He picks up and receives the call from Vice Admiral Thomas Rector, a man associated with the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 02:22AM GMT London , England Safia al-Maaz looks at the the flows. As she passes security, she observes that word of terrorism is floating around. The 30-year old realizes she already know what places in the museum is damaged as she has ran reserarch projects out of the museum. She meets Inspector Geoffrey Sameulson, who shows her in. Painter Crowe, a current DARPA member, is at his home town on the Native American casino in Conneticut. His target is Zhang, a Chinese gangster who has a lot of money and in possession of valuable data. His mission is to secure the data in order to prevent it from falling into CHinese hands. 02:22AM GMT London, England Safia stood outside the museum, waiting to enter. As an employee, she is eagar to enter to see what is going on. Inspector Samuelson invites her in. She is needed to investigate the destruction of her gallery. She meets with Ryan Felming, the head of scurity, who tells her a big portion of the gallery was lost and one person died, presumably Henry Masterson. A brief with Commander Randolph, representative of the Ministry of Defence’s antiterrorist division, leads to a review of security footage. A review shows that the security guard at the time Masterson following the noise and light, the orb of light. The orb of lightsettle on a display pedastal, one holding up an iron figure, then winked out. Momentarily, the display cabinet shatters followed by a second explosion in a flash of white. A thorough look at the item display determined the sculpture to be to actually be a fragment of a meteorite discovered in the Omani Desert near the end of the nineteenth century. Safia recalls the true history of the artifact. For centuries, Arabian myths spoke of a lost city whose entrace was guarded by an iron camel. This lost city held a wealth beyond comprehension and such riches had blakc perals said to be scarred near its entrance. A British explore was lead to the place, but no city. He only found a chunk of meteorite buried in the sand. This meteorite was part of the camel-shaped meteriorite had been part of the collection at the British Museum since its founding. Safia herself had found it from the storage lockers and moved it to the collections, a transfer that occurred two years prior. Moments prior, the director of the museum leads someone in. Lady Kensington. She is thankful Safia is there. Safia is reminded of their shared past. Sadia's mother died and her father was already gone so she was placed in an orphanage, where Reginald Kensington, Kara's father, adopted her. They They studied in England for two years and returned back to Oman to finish school in Muscat. Kara's father disappeared, with the official story as killed in a sinkhole. Kara's finacaial savant allowed continued revenue to continue fast and make extended profits, allowing Safia to continue for her education Her doctorate in archaeology. Kara is told that the gallery “... gone”. Seeing the tape, she says the word “Finally”. Chapter 2 November 14, 07:04A.M. EST Ledyard, Connecticut Patience is the key to any successful hunt. Painter Crowe was on his tribe's land named Mashantucket. In a casino he stood watching for his target. In the hamlet of Ledyard, Connecticut, the complex towered over the woods. The resort hosted this casino with six thousand slot machines and hundreds of gaming tables and its associated 3 world-class hotels, all of which owned by the Pequot tribe. His quarry was Xin Zhang, a brilliant Chinese computer scientist known by his hacker and coke breaker moniker Kaos. The past three years saw a wave of successful conputer espioage upon U.S. Soil, with his latest quisition:plasma weapons technology out of Los Alamos. Painter took a position to spy from a safe distance to not arouse suspicion. Zhang put up his chips to the dealer and played the game. He dressed like a typical Western business man: a sharply trailored suit in an understated pinstripe, a silk tie, a platinum Rolex. Fifty thousand dollars even. Zhang departs with his two bodyguards and leaves, having gambled all night. Plans were made to make a transfer after the CyberCrime forum that is scheduled to resume in 3 hours, covering the latest trends in theft, protection, and security topics. The prime target was to get the contact in a shady network that traded military secrets and technologies, a mission that cannot fail. Painter was personally selected by the people of DARPA to do this, as he has the ability to blend in at Foxwoods. Although he is only half-blooded, Painter inherited enough features of his father to pass as a Pequot Indian, although he had to hide the blue eyes inherited from his mother. Watching Zhang, Painter notices she is heading to his suite. His partner, Cassandra Sanchez, radioes hi to check up on his. They hope the target accesses his compute rin order for the “bug” to use. It was a subdermal tranceiver that was was mplanted during a deep skin massage. A person won the lottery and ran past him, bringing back memories. The Pequot Indians had engaged in the sand-and-gravel business in the 1980s. His father missed out. His mother killed her hsuband after 7 years of marriage and was imprisoned. Painter watches Zhang. He had managed to steal data from a federal server, spreading a worm planted, wasting two weeks for investigators on the false trail. Over a dozen DARPA agents filtered through the false leads to discover the true identity of the thief: Xin Zhang, a tech guy associated with a telecom upstart out of Shanghai, The CIA determined the info was on a suitcase computer in Zhang's suite. The hard drive was protected by trip-wire with an elaborate encription defence that would wipe the data with a single mistake. Nothing could be risked as nothing survived the worm at Los Alamos and set them back by a full t en months, enough data to advance China's resarch by five years. The info is inclusive. Mission is important Painter and Cassandra charge forward. They race to the suite and check. Cassandra carred a few weapons, but was a skilled killer with a deadly accuracy of a marksman. Zhang went back down to the first floor. They hacked the software to take them to first floor fast. On a wall, he saw the bug, realizing he was lured away. He was too late. 02:38 GMT London England Safia was surprised things have changed. The firestorm had wasted everything, destroying everything. The sole suruvivor was a single Babylonian vase in the center of the gallery. She finds a stone from the floor and retreives it. Kara hires her own forensic team and strives to find out who has knowledge about the death of her father. 420pm Kara was sitting somwhere and brings back memories. Memory Her father was trying to find something. She encounters people and tries her best to deal with them. The Empty Quarter of Arabia was the largest sand mass and fantasic tales were outlandish. She looked at over an onyx, something that her dad shoots and kills. Soon enough. She hears a sirring, as if gravity increased. Sand particles danced, with the her father being taken. The dust devil consumed her dad and kept him. He was goen, taken by the desert devil and no where. Modern day. A shout rang out. “over here” the call repeated. One of the technicians found something for Kara to f ind. 08:02 A.A. EST Ledyard, Connecticut Painter Crowe waited for an ambush. No one came. He ran out up to Zhang's suite and into the bedroom. There was a young girl slave who was hanged in the bedroom. He cut her down. The intercom notifies him that a firefight occurs at the north tower exit. A Lincoln own Car careened from the valet parking lot, on his way to pick up Zhang. Demands for roadblocks did not work. He ran and tried to catch up. Zhang got in, and tried. Painter threw a EM bomb and hoped for the best. The Town Car crashed into a row of parked cars and crashed. He ran up to the car, noticing that Zhang had killed himself. The computer was wiped and destroying the research data. He had to deal with Cassandra. Good for him. Reports said Zhang shot himself rather than be captured. Meeting Cassandra, Painter puts a gun to her head. He knows Cassandra is in on the plot and said that Zhang was onto the surveillance. The bug was never implanted. She knows the code, and he wants it. Cassandra tells Painter is swimming in the deep end and the sharks are circling. He receives a call from Admiral Rector on a radio, who is the head of DAPRA. A helicopter is on its way to pick him up to take him to Washington. Chapter 3 November 14, 05:05 PM GMT London England Safia finds something. There was a figure that once stood guard by a tomb in Salalah dating to 200 B.C. It was a man with an elongated objected lifted to his shoulder. It was a tragedy it was destroyed only the torso and two broken legs. She had to investigate things but one story particular stood out. Legend told of a city that thrived in the desert. It went by names such as Iram, Wabar, Ubar, The City of a Thousand Pillars. Mentions of its downfall was in the Koran, the Tale of Arabian Nights, and a few other books. Founded by a descendant of Noah, it was rich and decadent, occupied by peple who dablled n dark practices. Its kind defied warnings of a prophet and God drove it into thes ands. It was supposedly a veritable Atlantis of the deserts. Kara didn't care. She looked for Ubar. The city was discovered by Nicolas Clapp in 1992 using satellite groupd-penetrating radar. It was founded in 900 BC in one of few watering holes. It had prospered over the yerars until a giant sinkhole sank the city. The stone they were looking at needed to be borken open. A state was looked at and had to be borken. When it was opened, there was a crimson heart. 8:05 pm. All day, forensic teams gathered samples from the gallery. Taking a pill of adderal, Kara focuses. The Arched room is one of the most famous rooms of the Museum. Built in 1839, it had double galleries, pierced iron walkways and stairs, arched piers leading to recessed alcoves. The place has harkened to the times of Charles Darwin. An autops was conducted on the guard. Clay Bishop, a gradudate student, was set up with a digital camcorder resting on a tripod. The autopsy starts. A statue is examined and inside found was a heart shaped object that appeared to be anatomically correct. The statue was discovered by Reginald Kensington, Kara's father. It was a rare discovery since it was pre-Islanmic and dated to 200BC, found in pristine shape. It was the Tomb of Nabi Imran.'' The Director Tyson and Inspector Samuelson enter. They are interested. Information is provided to them. The statue was found by Reginald Kensington, Kara's father, from the tomb of Nabi Imran, a tomb dating to approximately 200 B.C, in perfect shape. This tomb had markings from people from the Bible and Koran, a rare thing. Safia reveals he is the father of the virgin Mary. 01:54pm EST Arlington, Virginia Painter Crowe is in the backseat of a silver Mercedes S500 sedan as it took him from Dulles International airport heading to Washington for DARPA headquarters. It was only a few hours ago tha the was confronting Cassandra Sanchez, someone he trusted for five years. They had been recruited o ut of Special Forces at the same time: he from the Navy Seals and she from the Army rangers. DARPA chose them for Sigma Force, but DARPA do not know its existance. Sigma's job is to search and seizure, agents who were sent into high-risk situations to obtain or protect new reearch and technologies. Its overarching goal is to protect and maintain the technological superiority of the United States, no matter the cost. This call back to headquarters was part of this in some urgency. Crowe follows in. Vice Admiral Tony Rector served as the head of DARPA for a long time. The office was ready for Crowe. Crowe enters. Rector had called up Dr. Sean McKnight to join them. Dr McKnight was the founder of Sigma Force and immediate superior to Crowe. Crowe defriefs the two men, saying he failed to obtain the password. Rector acknowledges that the technology will not be passed on. Conversation quickly spreads to the Museum, and Crowe is brought up to speed. Conversation tells the event, publicized as a lightning strike, is more than that. The ball of lightning was suspicious. The military managed to get an object that was the size of a softball. It was described as metroric iron, a sample of the artefact that exploded. The rock was attributed to be from the Tungska event in 1908 that struck Siberia. It is described as an explosion of antimatter. Debris and radiation match the radiation signature from Tunguska. It is concluded that the information is too close to be coincidence nor random. The object was a shell from that event. The information is considered too sensitive and cannot be leaked, even to allies of the U.S. Rector is sending a team with Crowe in charge to the British Museum. They are established as American scientists specializing in lightning research. This would mean co-operating with Safia and Kara from the British Museum. Also mentioned are two researchers from the Defense Sciences Office in London who were found shot and killed in their room with the room ransacked, something coincidental. 09:48 P.M. GMT London, England Safia said it had the heart had to be removed. In the heart, there was a a perfectly horizontal figure. It was the letter B in epigraphic South Arabian. Safia grabbed some tools and ,with he precision of a surgeon, hammar and chiseled away some chunks of brittle sandstone, then pick and brush to clear away to clear the right atrium. The letter was too complex to be of mere chance. It had no direct corresponding letter in English, and pronounced like the word “wa” and in translations was lited as “W-A' or even U”, as it sounded orally, although there ar eno vowels in Epigraphic South Arabian script. More of the heart was removed. She cleaned it up and lifed the heart free of the chest of the statue, lifitng it free. She was super careful to not break it, putting the heart on soft leather chamois to protect it. It was hollow. It was made of bronze. A third letter was found. It is the letter R. With the three letters, B, WA or U, and R, it spelled Ubar. The lost city of Arabia, the Atlantis of the sands. As Kara puts it, “ First a metorite fragment that was supposed to guard Ubar explodes... and now we find th ename written on a bronze heart.” Clay, the camera man, realizes something. He realizes there are only 3 letters even though a heart has 4 chambers. He reasons that the fourth chamber pumps out blood into the body into the aorta, to the brain and the rest of the body. The referenced fourth chamber is something prized more than bl ood itself by the ancient peoples of Arabia. Some of the resin was given off by the crystals, preserved from a time before Christ. Fankincense. Safia points out the town of Salalah is the beginning of the Incnse Road and the tomb of Nabi Imran lies within the city, where they must begin the search with an expidtion. Kara proposes a expedition that need to start within a week. She needs people and an archeologist who is experienced. They realize the person they are thinking of is not their favourite, but he is the most experienced in the region. “If we're going to succeed, we're going to need Indiana Jones.” Chapter 4 White Water November 15, 07:02 A.M. Yangtze River, China Omaha was in China for his own venture. At the time, he was on a boat on the Yangtze River. Bullets rang out, indicating he he is being pursued. He crouched over the wheel, racing down the crooked river gorge. Cliffs flanked both sides of the muddy Yangtze as it twisted and turned through a section aptly named the Narrows. He realizes that the in a few years, the Three Gorges dam would flood the place. Muffling the speaker, he tells his younger brother Danny Dunn to get the shotgun. A short convo was marked by a long pause that could possibly be chalked up to the lag between a satellite phone reaching London. A moment of clarity comes up to remind him of memories. He had been engaged to Safia Al-Maaz. He hasn't seen either in for years since they broke off their engagement. Kara Kensington asks him to join on a team to Oman she is putting together. He doesn't want to but is told it is important, and involves a major discovery: one that could rewrite the history as they know it. Anyways, he continues the call as his brother loads and shoots at the pursuers. As the moment he says yes, Kara hangs up. His brother shot one but the other 4 men in the boat gained speed. Omaha slowed the boat down, and looked at the cargo. It was apparently, 3 fossilized tyrannosaurus eggs, wort their weight in gold. Many collectors bought such as on the black market for princely sums. Omaha pours nitrous feed to the puls jets into the engines and waticed for the crooked river twist. As the twist came, he twitsted the wheel of the boat with the boost activated, causing the pirates to miss with their rocket launchers. The pursuit was very very intense as Omaha refuses to turn over the eggs, over the naitevete of his brothers. As they travel down the river, they look for ways to deal with things. They used a rock to propel the boat into the air, making it crash onto the other boat. This move caused the pursuers to stop and crash. Their boat engine was wrecked, but it was sea wothy to use paddles. Now they will call someone. 12:05 AM GMT Safia was wrapping the iron heart in acid-free specimen paper when the phone rang. It was Kara's phone. It was Omaha. He wonders what expidition is he needed on, only to be told it is a massive expidition to the city of Ubar. Realizing it is related to Kara's father, Omaha doesnt want to be goaded into an expidition. Kara declares she needs both of you, but will send help through a helicopter to retreive him. Chapter 5 High Wire Act November 15, 02:12 A.M. GMT London England Hours after Kara stormed off, Safia sat in her dark office. She is stunned Kara expects her to leave in a week. She spent more than four years in therapy in order to go through a wild-goose chase in the hinterlands of Oman, not to mention Omaha Dunn. He wa s interested in the book she was reading Arabian Archaeooogy and Epigraphy 5 and wanted to read a specific section. Dunn said, in Arabic, he wanted to settle the border dispuite by proivng the ancient tribal routes of the lolcal Duru tribes. As it was the only copy from the Institute of Arabian Studies, she didn't want to give out out for good and wanted him to read it there. The sponsor came and got interested, leaving them to talk for the aternon. She walks among the museum, to only encounter Ryan Fleming, the head of security. He was active in the Kensington Gallery because two phy sics from MIT was scanning with Geiger counters. They intorduce themselves as Painter Crowe and Dr. Coral Novak. Safia leaves with Ryan, feeling flushed by Painter. They did not go far when shots rang out, killing Ryan with a shot to the head. Blood and bits of skull sprayed everywhere. Three masked intruders appear, point guns at Safia, demanding “Where's the heart” Meanwhile, Painter is scanning for stuff. He remembered things av about Dr Novak; she was smart and came out of the CIA to join DARPA and deeply reminded him of Cassandra. Readings tell of soethmng real good. An urn held a chucnk of rock that was a piece of the metor., something from uranium. IT was uranium decay that was a clock that spanned millenium, and a decay and instabililty allowed it to discharge in the museum. In the shadows unnoticed, Crowe and Novak notice that the curator returns as a hotage to her office, remembering how the two Defence Sciences officers were show execution style in their hotel room. No weapons were with them in gun-shy Britain, but Coral brought a sheathed knife in her pants. Crowe grabbed a spade from a nearby piel of tools from the salvatge teams had left. Together, they kept watch over the doorway. Two figures, armed in black and assault rifles, appeared and sarched the hall. The third came, holding Safia al-Maaz by the elbow with a pistol shoved into her ribs. As she led them past Kensington Gallery, she says “Please don't shoot me”, a phrase that she tried saying something to ensure Painter and Crowe would be able to hear and get to safety and call for help. This earned some respect within the eyes of Painter. The riflemen, passed Painter's hiding spot, not discovering anything, continuing on down the hall. Painter signaled Coral to attack. Coral sprang ito action and landed between the guards and Safia's captor. This caused a distraction painter needed. He cracked the gunman's head. Coral kicked and killed the two guards. A kick to the knees and a dagger hit the second guard in the brain stem. Then, she kicked the first guard unconcious. Recovering Safia from the ground, Painter and Coral ask if there are more gunmen. Nothing was given and painter heads out to check on Ryan, the head of security. As he walks, he picks up an abandoned pistol by the gunman, a Walther P38, not a weapon he would have chosen. Meanwhile, Safia wonders who this man and woman is. She watches the woman deftly put rope on the groggy gunman's arms. She starts crying about her friend Ryan. Just about time she talks, she notices a nother masked gunman. She had tasered Coral Novak and narrowly dodged another taser. Running, she falls down the stairs, finding more gunman. She ran. Meanwhile, Painter narroly dodges bullets. Three security guards came in and try to escort him away, but manages to escape. Meanwhile, Safia tries to escape through an emergency hatch, but fails. She rams the door and leaves. She escapes and lures the gunman to somewhere over glass, and it collapses due to some glass breaking. The American had shot it. Painter attempted to fire a lot of bullets, but missed, only to be angry that the thief escaped. She got off the roof of somewhere. She tells Painter that the attacker as an woman. Painter looks at the weapon he had picked up earlier. Surprised, he realizes it is a Sig Sauer, 45mmm, with a rubberized grip with a thumb catch for the magazine release on the right size. It was a custom feature for the rare left-handed shooter. It was Cassandra. Up Next See ''Part 2 Category:Sandstorm